


Loaded Question

by Wallwalker



Category: Star Ocean: The Second Story
Genre: Community: fic_on_demand, Crush, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone thought it was a good idea to get Precis drunk, and Ernest is the one who ends up paying for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loaded Question

**Author's Note:**

> Written for haku_kaen @ LJ for the [Fic on Demand](http://community.livejournal.com/fic_on_demand) community at LiveJournal.

Ernest didn't know who had thought that giving Precis beer was a good idea, which was a damn shame, because he wanted to pull them aside and give them a good talking-to. He'd probably never know, though, because she'd already been hopelessly drunk when he'd walked into the hotel room, and Celine and Opera had both been watching her closely, with a strange mixture of worry and amusement on their faces. Of course Precis was a goofball drunk, as he'd always called the type - she was giggly and hyperactive even without the booze. Still, it had apparently served to calm her down a tiny bit.

Ernest wasn't sure how he'd ended up alone in the room with her. It was as if everyone else had decided to disappear at the same time... a fact that made him even more suspicious that this was some sort of bizarre setup. Then again, maybe they'd all gotten tired of her endless chatter and had decided to inflict it upon someone else for a while; again, he wasn't sure he'd ever know. Even if he asked the other women, even if they actually knew, he had a sinking suspicion that they wouldn't tell him.

He did know one thing, though - he wasn't going to sit around with a drunken, babbling Precis without having a drink of his own. He pulled a bottle of his favorite sake out of a hidden pocket in his coat (and Opera wondered why he kept the old thing) and took a quick sip as Precis went on.

"...and so I figured, hey, why not giant mechanical people, kinda like my Bobot but a whole lot bigger? We could make a whooooole bunch of 'em and make 'em fight each other when people get pissed off. Blam! Kaboom!" She pantomimed the explosions, grinning like a fool. "Wouldn't that be just soooo neat!?"

"Charming," Ernest said wryly. "But what if people decided to use the robots against other people?"

"Oh, now, _that's_ not allowed. That would just be mean." She sat back and thought for a little while, then nodded firmly to herself. "Yeah, definitely mean."

"I see," he said, and took another drink.

"Hey, Ern," she said as he put the bottle down. She was looking at him very intently, in a way that he wasn't at all sure he liked. "Did you have a lot of girlfriends before you met Opera?"

He blinked. "Not a great many, no," he answered, momentarily shocked into being completely honest. "One or two... my interests never gave me time to have a normal dating life."

"Hmmm... that's a pity. You're pretty handsome."

"Thank you," he muttered automatically, and immediately regretted it when he saw the way she puffed up when she said it. This was not the direction he'd hoped this conversation would go, not at all, and now he'd messed the whole thing up....

"So... you, like, haven't even considered having a girlfriend from some other planet? Like, say, Expel?"

Oh, _Tria._ "Of course not. The thought has never even crossed my mind." Well, all right, that wasn't completely honest - the thought _had_ crossed his mind the first time he'd met Celine, for instance - but so far he'd resisted the urge to act on it.

"Even if you weren't dating Opera?"

"Even if I had never even _met_ Opera."

"Oh." She didn't say anything for a while, just furrowed up her brow and swayed back and forth on the bed a little bit. "So does this mean we're not gonna make out now?"

Ernest almost choked on his beer. "What gave you _that_ idea?" he managed, after a minute or two.

"Oh... someone. I don't think I remember." She turned away and yawned. "I'm... getting kinda sleepy anyway... guess it's okay if we don't...."

Ernest sighed. "I think you need to get some sleep," he said. "Just... let me get you a couple of glasses of water first, okay?"

"'m not thirsty..."

"You will be if you don't get some water before you go to sleep. Trust me. I've dealt with this before."

She sighed. "All right," she said, and sat down on the bed.

Ern rushed to pour her a couple of glasses of water from the complimentary pitcher, and watched as she drank them both down - remarkably quickly, he had to admit, for a girl who had just claimed not to be thirsty. He watched for a minute, worried she wouldn't be able to keep it down, but she didn't seem to have a problem - she just pulled the covers out and rolled into bed. "Thanks, Ern... you really are a nice guy, y'know..."

Her voice faded to nothing, and soon enough he heard her snoring softly. He sighed again. "Good night, Precis," he said quietly, and turned around to leave the room. He really, _really_ hoped she wouldn't remember any of this in the morning.

He wasn't going to forget, though. And he was definitely going to need to find both Celine and Opera in the morning and have that nice, long chat, even if he was almost certain nothing good was going to come of it.


End file.
